Outline of Technological Expected, Probable and Possible Developments for the Next 30 years

I want to add one key prediction to this fairly obvious mix.  ( obvious if you track technology – I have not been really surprised since 1970 except to understand that someone other than us mavens cared about information – I am more surprised at how easy so much of it all is)  It is that the city needs to be geographically redistributed.

The reasons for urban concentration are all disappearing.  Yet linking urban clusters to specific working land bases opens the opportunity to optimize the development of the land and general biome.  It allows child development to be optimized and allows all members of the social unit to contribute to the land itself.

Neither will it take very much to trigger it into motion.  It will be need driven

Outline of technological expected, probable and possible developments for the next 30 years

21Share DECEMBER 23, 2011

Now through 2021

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/12/outline-of-technological-expected.html

Foxconn and Heartland Robotics and other companies will be driving costs down and capabilities up for robotics for manufacturing and home usage. There should be 100 million to 1 billion highly functional robots by the end of 2021. There will be a new category of robot using smartphones and tablets as the head (processing, cameras and sensors)

Virtually every person will have smartphones and tablets by 2016 and people in the developed world will have more than one.

There will be a variety of competing quantum computer technologies. Dwave will have a 512 qubit adiabatic quantum computer next year.

There will be large scale optical computers.

Memristors, graphene and plasmonic computers will enable superfast universal memory, neuromorphic computers and terahertz clock cycles.

There are many kinds of hot and cold nuclear fusion technologies that I am tracking closely. The "cold fusion" is likely some other kind of energy mechanism. I believe that several will get commercialized in this decade. However, the real impact even if things go well will be in the next decade as society adapts and the technologies are perfected and fully deployed. Just providing clean energy that does not have resource limitations is great for the environment and takes away some worries but only will have huge impact with massive reduction in energy prices and enabling massive new capabilities like space travel throughout the solar system and making industrialization of space easy.

The latter half of this first decade will see the impact of Spacex Falcon Heavy and solar electric sails and inflatable space stations. Spacex Falcon Heavy success could see launch costs go down to $1000/kg. 2016-2022 could see success with reusability could see launch costs go down to $100-200/kg.

There will be some commercialization of gene therapy, stem cell treatments, regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.

Myostatin inhibitors, SARM steroids and other treatments will combat frailty in the elderly and enable people to get more muscle mass which will burn more calories to combat obesity.

There will be early detection of cancer, immune system boosting against cancer and other diseases (new vaccines and other treatments.) There will be progress against air pollution and prevention of the 37 million early deaths in the developing world caused by lack of clean water, lack of sanitation and other relatively easily avoidable problems. There will be early stage anti-aging treatments. Several things that mimic calorie restriction which are emerging now and treatments like Stem Cell 100 (screened herbs that help fruit flies live longer). Some countries will edge over a life expectancy of 90 and anyone who takes care of themselves with exercise and diet will have reasonable chances to live to 100.

There will be growing effects of synthetic biology, DNA nanotechnology, RNA nanotechnology and protein nanotechnology.

Quantum dots for displays and electronics will get big.

Carbon nanotubes and graphene will achieve 100,000 to 1 million tons of production per year.

2022 through 2031

The energy revolution that emerged in the prior decade will disperse and have a broad impact.

Additive manufacturing will have broadened its impact to vastly speed up construction.

Broad Groups factory mass produced high rises will dominate all commercial construction.

Reusable Spacex rockets and possibly Skylon spaceplanes and other systems will revolutionize space access along with a blend of fusion powered systems.

The technologies of the mundane singularity with the energy revolution kicker will have major impacts.

1. Pro-growth Policies (variable and uncertain by region)
2. Energy Efficiency - superconductors, thermoelectrics, improved grid
3. Energy Revolution - Mass produced fission, fusion, and maybe cold fusion
4. Additive manufacturing
5. Not so mundane - neuromorphic chips, quantum computers, photonics
6. Automated transportation (leading to robotic cars and planes)
7. Urbanization MegaCities
8. Urbanization Broad Group skyscrapers, Tata flat packed buildings
9. Robotics
10. Hyperbroadband
11. Supermaterials
12. Improve medicine and public health
13. Space
14. Synthetic biology and recombineering
15. Sensors everywhere
16. Education transformed and accelerated innovation
17. Supersmartphones, exoskeletons and wearable systems
18. Memristors and other significant computing and electronic improvements.

Zettaflop supercomputers.

2032 through 2041

True molecular nanotechnology will finally emerge (possibly could happen in the 2025 timeframe, but I am certain it will happen by this time). Diamondoid, nanofactories etc... the real deal.

SENS and nanomedicine will pay off with radical life extension.

Diamond-nitrogen vacancy quantum computers.

The main cognitive enhancement that I would prefer to focus upon is the enhancmement of the capabilities of civilization to solve problems. Quantum computers and quantum algorithms will enable far more efficient solutions. Quantum computers for pattern recognition and superior database searches by many orders of magnitude will expand capabilities.

Expanded technologies will enable open the implementable solution space.

Additive manufacturing, factory mass produced buildings and large structures with molecular technology enhancement will enable rapid upgrades and expansion of world infrastructure and development of the solar system.

Whatever AGI and cognitive enhancement that comes from super charged neuromorphic systems and million or trillion zettaflop systems with optical computer and quantum computer coprocessing will be very interesting. I look forward to seeing it unfold with the radical life extension of molecular nanotechnology enabled SENS.

World Economic Trends through 2100 and Quadrillion dollar economies

Currently the world economy is $74 trillion on a purchasing power parity basis. the IMF is forecasting about 6% per year growth through 2015 for a world economy of $99 trillion.

A world economy ten times larger will be a quadrillion dollar economy. Inflation and using future dollars will accelerate that milestone.

This would be a forecast for the third column in the table below where there is 6-18% worldwide GDP growth. However, corruption and really bad decisions would cause the world to underperform. 

Increasing growth every 20 years

Year    flat 6% 6-11%   6-18%

 

2015    100     100     100    (trillions of dollars, World GDP PPP)

   

2020    134     134     134 

 

2030    241     241     241    2.5 times energy

                               30K per cap 

   

2040    431     474     571    3-4 times energy

                               50-70K per cap

   

2050    770     940    1390    5-10 times

                               80K-140K per cap

   

2060    1380   2000    4300    10-20 times energy

                               140K-430K per cap

   

2070    2500   4500   13700    15-40 times energy

                               250k-1.37 Million per cap

   

2080    4400  11600   56000    20-80 times energy

                               440K-5.6 M per cap 

  

2090    8000  30000  230000    35-200 times energy

                               800K-23 M percap    

2100   14000  86000 1200000    60-500 times energy

                               1.4M - 120 Million per cap

Blue Light Promotes Healthy Growth

The take home here is that augmenting blue light produces healthier and way more robust seedlings.  Thus we can expect protocols to quickly evolve to take advantage on this phenomenon.  Light starved lettuce is typically weak and this work quantifies the factors involved.

An obvious engineering project is to produce spectrum shading for green houses.  They need shading in any event and if the system blocked red light then the available light would be the beneficial blue light.  The result would be strongly boosted yields with a much higher take up of minerals.

A Fresnel filter should work well here and may be produced by etching the glass if glass is used.  Regardless it is solvable and an obvious improvement that could pay off handsomely.

Blue light irradiation promotes growth, increases antioxidants in lettuce seedlings

by Staff Writers

Abiko, Japan (SPX) Dec 13, 2011

This image shows morphology of red leaf lettuce plants treated with a white fluorescent lamp (FL), blue (B), red (R), and blue+red (BR) LED lights 17 days after sowing (DAS). Credit: Photo by Masafumi Johkan. 

http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Blue_light_irradiation_promotes_growth_increases_antioxidants_in_lettuce_seedlings_999.html

The quality of agricultural seedlings is important to crop growth and yield after transplantation. Good quality seedlings exhibit characteristics such as thick stems, thick leaves, dark green leaves, and large white roots. Scientists have long known that plant development and physiology are strongly influenced by the light spectrum, which affects seedling structure.

Raising seedlings irradiated with blue light has been shown to increase crop yield after planting because of the high accumulation of phenolic compounds.

Although most studies with blue light only or blue mixed with red light have indicated that blue light-containing irradiation produces higher plant biomass, recent research has suggested that yield and crop quality could be improved by controlling light quality.

Researchers from Japan's Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry premiered a study in HortScience that determined the effects of raising seedlings with different light spectra-such as with blue, red, and blue + red LED lights-on seedling quality and yield of red leaf lettuce plants.

Photosynthetic pigments, polyphenols, and antioxidant activity of lettuce seedlings treated with different light spectra were also determined.

The team performed experiments in which pregerminated seeds of red leaf lettuce were subjected to various light treatments using blue and red light for one week.

At the end of the light treatment (17 days after sowing), the leaf area and shoot fresh weight of the lettuce seedlings treated with red light increased by 33% and 25%, respectively, and the dry weight of the shoots and roots of the lettuce seedlings treated with blue-containing LED lights increased by greater than 29% and greater than 83% compared with seedlings grown under a white fluorescent lamp.

The shoot/root ratio and specific leaf area of plants irradiated with blue-containing LED lights decreased.

At 45 days after sowing (DAS), higher leaf areas and shoot fresh weight were obtained in lettuce plants treated with blue-containing LED lights.

"The total chlorophyll contents in lettuce plants treated with blue-containing and red lights were less than that of lettuce plants treated with florescent light; the chlorophyll a/b ratio and carotenoid content increased under blue-containing LED lights", the researchers wrote.

Polyphenol contents and the total antioxidant status were greater in lettuce seedlings treated with blue-containing LED lights than in those treated with florescent light at 17 DAS.

The scientists concluded that raising seedlings treated with blue light promoted the growth of lettuce plants after transplanting.

"This is likely because of high shoot and root biomasses, a high content of photosynthetic pigments, and high antioxidant activities in the lettuce seedlings before transplanting. The compact morphology of lettuce seedlings treated with blue LED light would be also useful for transplanting", noted corresponding author Kazuhiro Shoji.

The complete study and abstract are available on the

Increased Walking Speeds Cut Death Rate

What this really says of course is that the health and vigor of your gross muscle mass really matters and we sort of knew that anyway.  Walking has the benefit of gently exercising almost all the muscles in your body and particularly the most massive ones.  This additionally exercises the circulation system that supports those muscles.

So while we have all been taught to spend lots of time at the gym, it is plausible that we would all be better off using every excuse for a walk we can get.  After all strength training needs continuous maintenance while walking seems to easily maintain some level of critical tone.

Curiously I have noted most folks who make it into serious old age are spending plenty of time walking.  So take a hint and take a long walk.

Scientists suggest increase walking speeds and outrun the Grim Reaper

Saturday, December 24, 2011 by: Amelia Bentrup

http://www.naturalnews.com/034476_walking_longevity_exercise.html

(NaturalNews) Walk faster to stay one step ahead of Death, according to recent research published in the Christmas edition of BMJ. (During Christmas, this normally formal publication publishes more unconventional articles.) A team of scientists from various schools, hospitals and medical institutions located in Sydney, Australia collaborated to determine the maximum walking pace of the Grim Reaper and the speed necessary to outpace him.

Since the Grim Reaper himself was unavailable for participation in this study, the scientists measured the walking speed and mortality of 1,705 men over age 70 and used receiver operating characteristic curve analysis to estimate the preferred walking pace of the Grim Reaper. Results showed that men who walked faster were less likely to die. It was estimated that the Grim Reaper walks at a rate of approximately 1.8 miles per hour.

None of the men who walked at a speed of 3 miles/hour or greater met with Death during the time frame of the study; therefore, the scientists concluded that a walking pace greater than 3 miles/hour is optimal for outrunning Death.

The researchers used data from the Concord Health and Aging in Men Project, which is a study consisting of men over the age of 70 in Sydney, Australia. The researchers used a stopwatch to determine the time it took each participant to walk approximately 20 feet, using the fastest speed of two trials and adjusting walking speed for height. The men were then followed up with by telephone at 4 months intervals and with visits to the clinic at 2 and 5 years after the trial was completed.

It was found that men who walked at speeds greater than 2 miles per hour were 1.23 times less likely to die, while all 22 of the participants who walked at a pace of 3 miles per hour were still alive at the 5-year follow-up. The researchers conclude that "faster speeds are protective against mortality because fast walkers can maintain a safe distance from the Grim Reaper."

Other scientific studies have also shown the correlation between walking speed and mortality. A 2011 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association examined the relationship between gait speed and survival by pooling the analyses completed for 9 different studies around this topic. It was found that survival increased across the full range of gait speeds. A 2008 study published in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society found that a slower gait was associated with a significantly greater risk of mortality and incident disability. A 2005 study, also published in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, showed that a gait speed of less than 1 meter/second can be used to identify high-risk individuals for health-related events.

How to Stay Active in Older Age

Keeping up one's fitness level is especially important as one ages. It is likely that gait speed is highly correlated to overall fitness activity and levels. Continuing physical activity is important for maintaining strength, endurance, flexibility and balance. Swimming, walking, hiking, water aerobics and cycling are excellent aerobic activities and provide cardiovascular benefits. Strength training can be accomplished using stretching and resistance machines while exercises such as pilates and tai chi are excellent for improving balance.

No matter what physical activity one chooses, staying active is vital for maintaining a quick step...which is necessary for keeping ahead of the Grim Reaper and his Deathly touch.

Sources for this article include

http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj....

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/30...

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...

http://ezinearticles.com/?Staying-A...



About the author:

Amelia Bentrup is the owner and editor of http://www.my-home-remedies.com a well-researched collection of natural home remedies. Discover natural cures for a variety of ailments and find specific information and safety guidelines for various herbs, vitamins, minerals and essential oils.

Learn more:

http://www.naturalnews.com/034476_walking_longevity_exercise.html#ixzz1hRTlEmj3

Shroud of Turin is Real

More pertinent than even this is that the burst of ultra violet light processed through the body in an apparent plane of activity just as we scan a page to produce a Xerox copy.  This is technology we cannot produce ourselves and it will likely need another three decades or so.  Such a process could tackle each cell individually and plausible restore any damage and enliven the cell.  It likely lasted less than a couple of minutes to allow normal functioning to begin and not be additionally damaged.  My point here is that we can imagine the resurrection process itself as a digital process that is plausible in terms of our own technological efforts.  It is no longer mystical at all.

Yet it is categorical proof of the resurrection and by extension the specific role of Jesus as an intervener in the development of the Roman Empire.  I think he died too soon even though he used his death to empower a new movement that was revolutionary.  The West remains his inheritance.

Had he gained political traction in his time and place, he may have risen to influence the institutions of the Roman Empire in the midst of the Empire’s consolidation.  It is easy to posit simple steps that could have led the Roman Empire into the world of modernism having the benefit of historical hindsight.

It did not happen and his legacy was a religion that set out one convert at a time to restructure the moral ethos.  That a third of the globe’s population is today part of that ethos and that it continues to expand vigorously as if it is as fresh as the day it was born is a remarkable achievement.  The criticism that many in the developed world have strayed is an error.  No where do we see a restoration of the old moral ethos and never will.  In fact the constant pressure to protect even wolves and lions is an example of the extremes of the Christian ethos.

My take home today is that every human being on Earth today must now confront a new and also old truth.  Jesus was resurrected with technology clearly superior to our own technology today and plausibly beyond our reach for a long time. His promise of immortality is surely a deliverable in the physical world and coincides with our burgeoning knowledge of the spiritual world which we no longer can safely dismiss.  He offered a route to immortality through a combination of faith (acceptance of Jesus as mentor and master) and following his teachings. 

Shroud of Turin: Shroud Could Not Have Been Faked, Indicates a Supernatural Occurrence Reports Say

By Jena Isle on Dec 22, 2011 in Amazing, Announcement, Science, World

http://www.batangastoday.com/shroud-of-turin-shroud-could-not-have-been-faked-indicates-a-supernatural-occurrence-reports-say/19609/

Scientists who have tested the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, has finally released their results pointing to the fact that the Shroud of Turin could not have been faked and that a  supernatural occurrence may be the reason for the occurrence. This was disclosed by several international news sites, December 21, 2011.

Scientist tried to duplicate the Shroud of Turin but could only come near to duplicating it by using a “short and intense burst of UV directional radiation.” This fact indicates the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin because there was no UV technology during those times, that could have created the imprint, reports said.

The Shroud of Turin shows an imprint of a double image of a man, who apparently, was scourged and crucified.Christians believed that the shroud was the burial clothes of Jesus Christ after His crucifixion in the Mount of Calvary.

Reportedly, Professor Paolo Di Lazzaro, the head of the research said that:

“When one talks about a flash of light being able to colour a piece of linen in the same way as the shroud, discussion inevitably touches on things such as miracles and resurrection. But as scientists, we were concerned only with verifiable scientific processes.”

Previous reports stated that a radiocarbon dating test, which was conducted in 1988 at the University of Oxford, the University of Arizona and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, showed that the Shroud of Turin was dated between 1260 and 1390. Some experts say though that the shroud may have been contaminated by clothing from the middle ages.

The latest result however as stated by the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Development of Italy points to the fact that the shroud could not have been faked.

Shroud of Turin Is Real, Scientists Claim, Citing New Evidence

By Stoyan Zaimov | Christian Post Reporter

http://www.christianpost.com/news/shroud-of-turin-is-authentic-scientists-claim-new-evidence-reignites-debate-65284/

The Shroud of Turin, which many believe to be the burial robe of Jesus Christ – is likely to be authentic in nature, Italian scientists have recently claimed.

           

A negative version photo of the Shroud of Turin, Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, revealing a face commonly associated with Jesus Christ, taken in August 1978.

The ancient 14-foot long piece of cloth is said to hold remarkable imprints of a crucified man with long hair and a bearded face. However, critics insist the shroud in question is a forgery created in the Middle Ages, somewhere between 1260 and 1390.

Radiocarbon tests conducted in 1988 in Arizona, Oxford and Zurich seemed to prove that theory to be true, but were disputed due to claims that fibers from the cloth were used around that time period simply to repair the shroud, which would explain the skewed findings, The Telegraph reported.

Attempts in the past had been made to replicate the relic in order to prove that it is a fake, and although scientists from Italy's National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Development managed to create such a duplicate, they concluded that it would be impossible for anyone to have done the same with technology available in the Middle Ages:

"The double image (front and back) of a scourged and crucified man, barely visible on the linen cloth of the Shroud of Turin, has many physical and chemical characteristics that are so particular that the staining ... is impossible to obtain in a laboratory," the experts said.

The leader of the project, Prof Paolo Di Lazzaro, explained that their research was based purely on the scientific evidence at hand and left theological interpretations up to the "conscience of individuals."

Between 1978 and 1981, a group of 31 American scientists, called the Shroud of Turin Research Project, conducted 120 hours of X-ray and ultraviolet tests that arrived to the same conclusion.

"There are no chemical or physical methods known which can account for the totality of the image, nor can any combination of physical, chemical, biological or medical circumstances explain the image adequately," they said, according to the Telegraph.

A professor of chemistry at Pavia University, Luigi Garlaschelli, shared with The Independent: "The implications are... that the image was formed by a burst of UV energy so intense it could only have been supernatural. But I don't think they've done anything of the sort."

The Shroud of Turin is kept in the royal chapel of the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, and preserved in a temperature-controlled case. The relic, visited by millions of people each year, has never been formally denied or accepted by the Catholic Church. 

Breath Sensor For Lung Cancer

By taking advantage of the fact that these ailments cause changes in the mix of exhalents, it seems possible to establish a sensing protocol able to provide early detection.  It would also be rather inexpensive although it would also be simply a strong indicator.  Yet that is what saves lives.

I have also held high hopes for blood tomography of proteins yet that never seems to have gotten going with any success.  My first experience with attempts to harness that goes back to the mid eighties.  It again used statistical analysis to drive the system.

Add in uniform empirical protocols to medical diagnostics and perhaps we can improve medical care from the present state of laying on of hands.  True use of computer power is long overdue.

New Sensor to Detect Lung Cancer from Exhaled Breath

ScienceDaily (Dec. 23, 2011) — Tecnalia, through the Interreg project Medisen, is contributing to develop biosensors capable of detecting the presence of tumour markers of lung cancer in exhaled breath. This is possible because of the changes produced within the organism of an ill person, changes reflected in the exhaled breath of the patient and which enable determining the presence of this type of marker during the initial stages of the disease.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111223091331.htm

Some illnesses such as lung and stomach cancer or liver diseases which, due to the difficulty of diagnosis, have symptoms that are often confused with routine disorders.

Therefore, in most cases, the disease is only detected at an advanced stage. New methods for early detection are being investigated as an urgent need.

Tecnalia, through the Interreg project Medisen, is contributing to develop biosensors capable of detecting the presence of tumour markers of lung cancer in exhaled breath.

This is possible because of the changes produced within the organism of an ill person, changes reflected in the exhaled breath of the patient and which enable determining the presence of this type of marker during the initial stages of the disease.

Patients with lung cancer, treated in the Section of Medical Oncology of the Institute of Onco-Haemathology of the Donostia Hospital (IDOH) have collaborated in this phase of the project. For that, the Ethic Committee of the Clinical Research of Euskadi (CEIC) gave the authorization to the Instituto Biodonostia for the clinical trials

Human breath, whether from a healthy or ill person, is composed of a hundreds of organic compounds: acetone, methanol, butanol, hydrocarbons, amongst others. There is not a single specific component in the exhaled breath capable of acting as a marker for the diagnosis of lung cancer. A range of biomarkers and its combination should be selected. The compounds of interest are generally to be found at 1-20 parts per billion (ppb) in healthy human breath but can be increased 10-100-fold in the breath of sick patients. In order to be able to detect these changes the development of novel materials was required.

During the first phase of the project, breath samples were collected by the hospital staff by a breath collecting device. A detailed analysis of the most representative compounds present in the breath samples has been carried out and the family or families of compounds required to act as markers for the presence of lung cancer selected. Organic compounds have been analysed using gas chromatograph/mass spectrometry analysis (GC/MS). Then, the GC/MS results of breath tests have been analysed by statistical and structural algorithms to discriminate and identify "healthy and "cancerous" patterns that really provide information for the design of the sensor.

In parallel, novel materials for the detection of the selected organic compounds have been developed by Tecnalia in order to increase the sensitivity of the devices. Participating together with Tecnalia in this project were the Instituto de Tecnologías Químicas Emergentes de La Rioja (Inter-Química) designing the sensor device and the University of Perpignan (France) testing the novel materials.

As a conclusion, the biosensors will facilitate the diagnosis of certain diseases; mainly those located in the lungs, at the initial stages of the illness, which could increase considerably the chances of survival.

Recommend this story o

Mayan Ruins in North Georgia

There was ample indication of prehistoric intrusions along the Gulf coast and a Mayan Colony is not only plausible but very likely if not even more common place than presently understood. Such a colony would almost certainly gave aimed to bring a population of around a thousand as quickly as feasible in order to fully organize agriculture and to over awe local populations.

Linking it to the Mayan collapse is presently premature.  More likely it was an expression of Mayan expansion.

I have seen comparable tales of other such colonies that include Mediterranean and Chinese sources, both of which are plausible because of climatic conditions.  All were too far from homelands to receive continuous support and ultimately settled into the indigenous background until the modern era.

It is a story that needs to be better studied and resolved.  I particularly note that Bronze Age global commerce provided further opportunity for such colonization and intermarriage that extended through a two thousand years with a hot spot running from say 1600 BCE through 1159 BCE.

1,100-year-old Mayan ruins found in North Georgia

By David Ferguson

Thursday, December 22, 2011

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/22/1100-year-old-mayan-ruins-found-in-north-georgia/

Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of an ancient Mayan city in the mountains of North Georgia believed to be at least 1,100 years old. According to Richard Thornton at Examiner.com, the ruins are reportedly what remains of a city built by Mayans fleeing wars, volcanic eruptions, droughts and famine.

In 1999, University of Georgia archeologist Mark Williams led an expedition to investigate the Kenimer Mound, a large, five-sided pyramid built in approximately 900 A.D. in the foothills of Georgia’s tallest mountain, Brasstown Bald. Many local residents has assumed for years that the pyramid was just another wooded hill, but in fact it was a structure built on an existing hill in a method common to Mayans living in Central America as well as to Southeastern Native American tribes.

Speculation has abounded for years as to what could have happened to the people who lived in the great Meso-American societies of the first century. Some historians believed that they simply died out in plagues and food shortages, but others have long speculated about the possibility of mass migration to other regions.

When evidence began to turn up of Mayan connections to the Georgia site, South African archeologist Johannes Loubser brought teams to the site who took soil samples and analyzed pottery shards which dated the site and indicated that it had been inhabited for many decades approximately 1000 years ago. The people who settled there were known as Itza Maya, a word that carried over into the Cherokee language of the region.

The city that is being uncovered there is believed to have been called Yupaha, which Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto searched for unsuccessfully in 1540. So far, archeologists have unearthed “at least 154 stone masonry walls for agricultural terraces, plus evidence of a sophisticated irrigation system and ruins of several other stone structures.” Much more may still be hidden underground.

The find is particularly relevant in that it establishes specific links between the culture of Southeastern Native Americans and ancient Mayans. According to Thornton, it may be the “most important archeological discovery in recent times.”

UPDATE: Raw Story contacted another UGA Scientist, Dr. B. T. Thomas of the Department of Environmental Science, who indicated that, while it is unlikely that the Mayan people migrated en masse from Central America to settle in what is now the United States, he refused to characterize Thornton’s conclusions as “wrong,” stating that it is entirely possible that some Mayans and their descendants migrated north, bringing Mayan building and agricultural techniques to the Southeastern U.S. as they integrated with the existing indigenous people there.

(Photo of Mayan calendar via Flickr Commons)

David Ferguson

David Ferguson is a writer and radio producer living in Athens, Georgia. He hosts two shows for Georgia Public Broadcasting and has blogged at Firedoglake.com and elsewhere. He is currently working on a book.

Skull Study Provides Headache

This insight actually resolves something else.  The Neanderthal skull supported much stronger jaws than we use.  Is it possible that a switch to a more modernist diet led to a complete reshaping of the skull and a loss of the brow ridge?

The Neanderthals were generally more robust than humanity but that plausibly reflected the special conditions of Ice Age hunter gathering.  The ability to settle down into an easier lifeway could thus easily have brought about the observed difference.  At the least we need to revisit the assumptions we have held from the beginning.

Could the simple switch to cooked food lead indirectly to much larger skulls?  Once you establish that changes are all linked together, one may as well start with the biggest and easiest.

Human skull study causes evolutionary headache

by Staff Writers

Manchester, UK (SPX) Dec 23, 2011

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Human_skull_study_causes_evolutionary_headache_999.html

Scientists studying a unique collection of human skulls have shown that changes to the skull shape thought to have occurred independently through separate evolutionary events may have actually precipitated each other. Researchers at the Universities of Manchester and Barcelona examined 390 skulls from the Austrian town of Hallstatt and found evidence that the human skull is highly integrated, meaning variation in one part of the skull is linked to changes throughout the skull.

The Austrian skulls are part of a famous collection kept in the Hallstatt Catholic Church ossuary; local tradition dictates that the remains of the town's dead are buried but later exhumed to make space for future burials.

The skulls are also decorated with paintings and, crucially, bear the name of the deceased. The Barcelona team made measurements of the skulls and collected genealogical data from the church's records of births, marriages and deaths, allowing them to investigate the inheritance of skull shape.

The team tested whether certain parts of the skull - the face, the cranial base and the skull vault or brain case - changed independently, as anthropologists have always believed, or were in some way linked.

The scientists simulated the shift of the foramen magnum (where the spinal cord enters the skull) associated with upright walking; the retraction of the face, thought to be linked to language development and perhaps chewing; and the expansion and rounding of the top of the skull, associated with brain expansion.

They found that, rather than being separate evolutionary events, changes in one part of the brain would facilitate and even drive changes in the other parts.

"We found that genetic variation in the skull is highly integrated, so if selection were to favour a shape change in a particular part of the skull, there would be a response involving changes throughout the skull," said Dr Chris Klingenberg, in Manchester's Faculty of Life Sciences

"We were able to use the genetic information to simulate what would happen if selection were to favour particular shape changes in the skull.

"As those changes, we used the key features that are derived in humans, by comparison with our ancestors: the shift of the foramen magnum associated with the transition to bipedal posture, the retraction of the face, the flexion of the cranial base, and, finally, the expansion of the braincase.

"As much as possible, we simulated each of these changes as a localised shape change limited to a small region of the skull. For each of the simulations, we obtained a predicted response that included not only the change we selected for, but also all the others.

"All those features of the skull tended to change as a whole package. This means that, in evolutionary history, any of the changes may have facilitated the evolution of the others."

Lead author Dr Neus Martinez-Abadias, from the University of Barcelona's, added: "This study has important implications for inferences on human evolution and suggests the need for a reinterpretation of the evolutionary scenarios of the skull in modern humans."

Martinez-Abadias, N.; Esparza, M.; Sjovold, T.; Gonzalez-Jose, R.; Santos, M.;

Hernandez, M.; Klingenberg, C.P. "Pervasive genetic integration directs the evolution of human skull shape". Evolution, November 2011, DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01496.x

Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreaming is a phenomenon that is clearly not understood, but been able to at least trigger it would be a great start.  Meditation is very much trying to do just this and although the goals there are generally spiritual, the existence of a clear physical phenomenon strongly suggests that it needs to be rethought and applied to a range of separate ends.

Using it as a learning tool that obviously leaps to mind.  Exploring astral plains under controlled conditions also appeals.  Just what else may we attempt if it can be controlled?  What is most important is developing the ability to induce it easily for everyone.  That does not seem to have happened as yet although the promise is there and it needs to become a cost effective system.

I have experienced what is best described as a lucid dream in which completely uncalled for and unusual information was shared with me that both confirmed certain things and opened the door to additional considerations.  It would have been a perfect mode in which to absorb the contents of a substantial text and perhaps even be able to recall it after.  It would be well worth trying if one could manage the process.

It struck me that revelation was possible in this mode which is very interesting for a prepared mind.

Lucid Dreaming could be used for learning new skills and improved decision making

DECEMBER 23, 2011

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/12/lucid-dreaming-could-be-used-for.html

New Scientist - A slew of recent studies have shown that people can use dreams to improve decision-making and physical skills. They could even help people regain mobility following a stroke.

Lucid dreaming is an unusual phenomenon in which some people are able to "wake up" while still in a dream. Though the dreamer is technically asleep, they are aware of their situation and are able to control the content of their dreams. In this state, people are also able to signal to researchers that they have entered a lucid dream through a series of prearranged eye movements; no other movement is possible during REM sleep.

Being in command of dreams opens up opportunities to manipulate them for learning and training that have an impact once the dreamer wakes up. Peter Morgan at Yale University and colleagues have shown that lucid dreamers perform better in a gambling task designed to test the functioning of the brain's ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is thought to be involved in emotional decision-making and social interactions (Consciousness and Cognition, DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2010.08.001).  +By training this region through lucid dreams, Morgan hopes to be able to improve a person's social control and decision-making abilities.

Lucid dreaming and ventromedial versus dorsolateral prefrontal task performance

Activity in the prefrontal cortex may distinguish the meta-awareness experienced during lucid dreams from its absence in normal dreams. To examine a possible relationship between dream lucidity and prefrontal task performance, we carried out a prospective study in 28 high school students. Participants performed the Wisconsin Card Sort and Iowa Gambling tasks, then for 1 week kept dream journals and reported sleep quality and lucidity-related dream characteristics. Participants who exhibited a greater degree of lucidity performed significantly better on the task that engages the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (the Iowa Gambling Task), but degree of lucidity achieved did not distinguish performance on the task that engages the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (the Wisconsin Card Sort Task), nor did it distinguish self-reported sleep quality or baseline characteristics. The association between performance on the Iowa Gambling Task and lucidity suggests a connection between lucid dreaming and ventromedial prefrontal function.

The lucid dreamers were more likely to report that they were free from mental health problems. They also scored more highly on questions relating to self-confidence, tended to be more assertive, and showed a greater satisfaction with life.

Research has already shown that people who practise tasks in their lucid dreams are better at performing them the following day.

Genome Sequence for Seed Plants

This work has nicely sorted out the genome tree for plants and resolved a number of issues and provides confidence in the sequence established.  It will now be easier to go after targets worth chasing.

There is still much that needs to be done to decode the genome and this will keep folks busy for a long time.  When we are finished though, it is clear that we will be able to synthesize just about anything we want to see.

Those who read my blog regularly are aware that I have been developing the working conjecture that humanity originally arose to modernism some 40,000 thousand years ago and chose to vacate Earth temporarily around 15,000 years ago.  During this time they accomplished every thing we imagine to accomplish today.  This means that it is plausible that they created a range of new animals and plants that were then introduced into appropriate habitats.  An obvious example is the cheetah with its coincidental 40,000 bottleneck and its combined dog and cat DNA package.  There must be many  others to be winkled out if this conjecture holds true.

Beyond that our agricultural crop kit from 10,000 years ago were all nicely engineered with doubled up genes to provide large grains in virtually all six initial centers of agriculture.  This is all more plausible (the facts themselves can not be evaded and beg any simple explanation) if one has active support from scientific man.

Once again we are on the verge of repeating all the necessary mythology needed to accomplish what was already done for us and once we do this it will become obvious that this is what did happen, or at the least we will be able to test the conjecture to death.

Genome tree of life is largest yet for seed plants

by Staff Writers

New York NY (SPX) Dec 21, 2011

This is a phylogenomic reconstruction of the evolutionary diversification of seed plants. Credit: E.K. Lee et al. 

http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Genome_tree_of_life_is_largest_yet_for_seed_plants_999.html

Scientists at the American Museum of Natural History, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, The New York Botanical Garden, and New York University have created the largest genome-based tree of life for seed plants to date. Their findings, published in the journal PLoS Genetics, plot the evolutionary relationships of 150 different species of plants based on advanced genome-wide analysis of gene structure and function.

This new approach, called "functional phylogenomics," allows scientists to reconstruct the pattern of events that led to the vast number of plant species and could help identify genes used to improve seed quality for agriculture.

"Ever since Darwin first described the 'abominable mystery' behind the rapid explosion of flowering plants in the fossil record, evolutionary biologists have been trying to understand the genetic and genomic basis of the astounding diversity of plant species," said Rob DeSalle, a corresponding author on the paper and a curator in the Museum's Division of Invertebrate Zoology who conducts research at the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics.

"Having the architecture of this plant tree of life allows us to start to decipher some of the interesting aspects of evolutionary innovations that have occurred in this group."

The research, performed by members of the New York Plant Genomics Consortium, was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Plant Genome Program to identify the genes that caused the evolution of seeds, a trait of important economic interest.

The group selected 150 representative species from all of the major seedplant groups to include in the study. The species span from the flowering variety-peanuts and dandelions, for example-to non-flowering cone plants like spruce and pine.

The sequences of the plants' genomes-all of the biological information needed to build and maintain an organism, encoded in DNA-were either culled from pre-existing databases or generated, in the field and at The New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, from live specimens.

With new algorithms developed at the Museum and NYU and the processing power of supercomputers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and overseas, the sequences-nearly 23,000 sets of genes (specific sections of DNA that code for certain proteins)-were grouped, ordered, and organized in a tree according to their evolutionary relationships.

Algorithms that determine similarities of biological processes were used to identify the genes underlying species diversity.

"Previously, phylogenetic trees were constructed from standard sets of genes and were used to identify the relationships of species," said Gloria Coruzzi, a professor in New York University's Center for Genomics and Systems Biology and the principal investigator of the NSF grant.

"In our novel approach, we create the phylogeny based on all the genes in a genome, and then use the phylogeny to identify which genes provide positive support for the divergence of species."

The results support major hypotheses about evolutionary relationships in seed plants.

The most interesting finding is that gnetophytes, a group that consists mostly of shrubs and woody vines, are the most primitive living non-flowering seed plants-present since the late Mesozoic era, the "age of dinosaurs." They are situated at the base of the evolutionary tree of seed plants.

"This study resolves the long-standing problem of producing an unequivocal evolutionary tree of the seed plants," said Dennis Stevenson, vice president for laboratory research at The New York Botanical Garden.

"We can then use this information to determine when and where important adaptations occur and how they relate to plant diversification. We also can examine the evolution of such features as drought tolerance, disease resistance, or crop yields that sustain human life through improved agriculture."

In addition, the researchers were able to make predictions about genes that caused the evolution of important plant characteristics. One such evolutionary signal is RNA interference, a process that cells use to turn down or silence the activity of specific genes.

Based on their new phylogenomic maps, the researchers believe that RNA interference played a large role in the separation of monocots-plants that have a single seed leaf, including orchids, rice, and sugar cane-from other flowering plants. Even more surprising, RNA interference also played a major role in the emergence of flowering plants themselves.

"Genes required for the production of small RNA in seeds were at the very top of the list of genes responsible for the evolution of flowering plants from cone plants," said Rob Martienssen, a professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

"In collaboration with colleagues from LANGEBIO [Laboratorio Nacional de Genomica para la Biodiversidad] in Mexico last year, we found that these same genes control maternal reproduction, providing remarkable insight into the evolution of reproductive strategy in flowering plants."

The data and software resources generated by the researchers are publicly available and will allow other comparative genomic researchers to exploit plant diversity to identify genes associated with a trait of interest or agronomic value. These studies could have implications for improving the quality of seeds and, in turn, agricultural products ranging from food to clothing.

In addition, the phylogenomic approach used in this study could be applied to other groups of organisms to further explore how species originated, expanded, and diversified.

"The collaboration among the institutions involved here is a great example of how modern science works," said Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis, a term assistant professor at Columbia University's Barnard College and a research associate at the Museum's Sackler Institute. "Each of the four institutions involved has its own strengths and these strengths were nicely interwoven to produce a novel vision of plant evolution."

Other authors include Ernest Lee, American Museum of Natural History; Angelica Cibrian-Jaramillo, American Museum of Natural History, The New York Botanical Garden, and New York University - currently at the Laboratorio Nacional de Genomica para la Biodiversidad, Mexico; Manpreet Katari, New York University; Alexandros Stamatakis, Technical University Munich - currently at Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies; Michael Ott, Technical University Munich; Joanna Chiu, University of California, Davis; Damon Little, The New York Botanical Garden; and W. Richard McCombie, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.